Moving Toward Carbon Neutrality

In July 2007, Affordable Comfort, Incorporated, (ACI) convened a summit in San Francisco, which was called “Moving Existing Homes Toward Carbon Neutrality.” The goal of the summit was to create and clarify a vision of deep energy savings—a 70% to 90% reduction in total energy use—in existing single-family and multifamily dwellings. This level of reduction is achievable now through a combination of technical interventions and behavioral choices. While not all homes will be good candidates for deep energy reductions, we at ACI propose that the deep energy reduction paradigm can and should provide the framework for viewing energy and carbon reductions at a household, program, and policy level. Indeed, the growing awareness of the probable impacts of climate change makes it compelling to adopt deep energy reductions as the basis for developing energy and housing-related policy and investing resources. Properly implemented, the deep energy reduction paradigm has the potential to reduce energy vulnerability and climate change’s environmental impact, both at the national level and at the level of the individual home, while enhancing the comfort, indoor air quality (IAQ), and durability of that home. The technology for achieving ambitious reductions exists—or most of ...